PART IV: THE MIND WORLD

Volume IV - Mental Purification and Healing

Part I: HEALTH

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A regular life, pure diet, good sleep, a balance between
activity and repose, and right breathing, all these help one
to health. But the best remedy for healing oneself of all illnesses
and infirmities of mind is belief. Many think that they believe,
but there are very few who really believe. The belief of many
is as I heard someone say, 'I believe, may God strengthen my
belief.' It is an affirmation, which has no meaning. If a person
says, 'I believe', that does not mean that he believes, for
belief in its perfection becomes faith. And what does Christ
say about faith? He says, 'Faith removes mountains.' No doubt
the priest speaks of faith in the Church, the clergyman of faith
in the Book; but that is not the real meaning of faith. Faith
is the culmination of belief, and when faith is attained to
a certain degree it will grow as a plant. When belief is complete
it turns into faith. Cure is brought about by faith in all cases,
whether it be a sudden cure or whatever may be the nature and
character of the case. Faith speeds the condition; so great
as the faith is, so quick the time of healing. Without faith
even medicine cannot help. No treatment can give good results
where faith is lacking. Faith is the first remedy; everything
else comes afterwards. All our failures, sorrows, disappointments,
difficulties in life are caused by our lack of belief. Illness
means lack of belief. Beyond and above all other evidences illness
is the sign of the lack of belief; if one believed, there would
certainly be no place for illness. But illness takes the place
of belief. One cannot disbelieve in what one believes. Illness
becomes one's belief. That is where the difficulty comes in.
When a person says, 'I am fighting against my illness', that
means, 'My imagination is fighting against my belief'. He affirms,
'I am fighting against my illness', which means he establishes
illness in himself. He fights against something, which he affirms
to be existing. In his belief he gives the first place to the
illness; the second place in his belief he gives to the imagination
of curing it. Thus the power with which he wishes to remove
his illness is much smaller than the power which is already
established in him by illness. He fights against something,
which he affirms to be existing.

There are people who think that they will never fall into
such an error as believing in something for which there is no
evidence, and they think this is very clever. And when we search
in the world of evidence, we shall find one deluding cover under
another. And so one can go on, probing the depths of life, from
one illusion to another, never arriving at the realization of
truth. How can you rely upon evidences, which are subject to
change? Therefore if there is anything to rely upon it is belief.
It is not evidence, which gives one belief; and if evidence
gives belief, that belief will not last, for evidences are not
lasting. It is that belief, which stands above evidence, which
in the end will culminate in faith. It is people like Bayazid,
whom many would consider 'in the clouds', who prove in their
lives what belief means. Bayazid was going on pilgrimage to
Mecca. A dervish was sitting by the way on his journey. Wanting
to pay homage to a spiritual man, he went to that dervish and
sat down to receive his blessing. The dervish asked him, 'Where
are you going?' He said, 'I am going to Mecca.' 'On business'
He was astonished. 'No, on a pilgrimage.' 'On a pilgrimage?
What do they do on the pilgrimage?' Bayazid replied, 'They walk
around the holy stone of Kaba.' The dervish said, 'You do not
need to go so far for that pilgrimage. If you will make circles
round me and go back your pilgrimage is done.' Bayazid said,
'Yes, I believe this.' He circled around the man and went back
home; and when people asked, 'Did you make a pilgrimage to the
Kaba?' he said, 'Yes, I made a pilgrimage to a living Kaba.'

Belief is not an imagination, belief is a miracle in itself,
for belief is creative. For instance a person certainly believes
that he can get so many centimes for a franc, and everyone believes
it, because there is evidence. He has not far to go for the
evidence. He has only to go to the bank to find out. But belief
is difficult when there is no evidence. It is just like building
a castle in the air, but then that castle becomes paradise.
If one believes in what does not exist, the belief will make
it exist. If there is a condition that one believes in, even
if that condition does not exist, it will be produced. The difference
between the mind of the believer and the mind of the unbeliever
is this, that the mind of the believer is like a torch and the
mind of the unbeliever is like a light which is covered by something
which does not allow it to spread its light.

Very often a man is afraid of losing his common sense,. He
would rather be ordinary than become extraordinary. He is afraid
of losing himself, but he does not know that losing himself
means gaining himself. A person may say, 'To think about these
things is like moving in the air.' But if we were not in the
air what would become of us? Air is the substance on which we
live, more important for us than the food we eat and the water
we drink. Belief, therefore, is the food of the believer; it
is the sustenance of his faith. It is on belief that he lives,
not on food and water.

Faith is so sacred that it cannot be imparted, it must be
discover within oneself. But there is no one in the world, who
is without faith, it is only covered up. And what covers it:
a kind of pessimistic outlook on life. There are people who
are pessimistic outwardly, there are others who are pessimistic
unconsciously, they themselves do not know that they are pessimistic.
Man can fight with the whole world, but he cannot fight with
his own self, he cannot break his own doubts; and the one who
can disperse these clouds has accomplished a great thing in
the world.

Is faith attainable by perseverance in belief? Things of
heaven cannot be attained by perseverance, they are the grace
of God. No perseverance is required to ask for the grace of
God, to believe in the grace of God, and to open oneself for
the grace of God, to trust in it. It is this, which strengthens
belief into faith. Everything belonging to the earth costs us
more or less. We purchase it. There is only one thing, which
does not cost anything, because we can never pay its price,
and that is the grace of God. We cannot pay for it in any form,
in any way, by our goodness, by our piety, by our great qualities,
merits or virtues, nothing. For what does our goodness amount
to? Our lifelong goodness is nothing more than a drop of water
compared with the sea. We as human beings are too poor to pay
for the grace of God in order to purchase it; it is only given
to us.

For God is love. What do we expect from love? Grace. The
grace of God is the love of God, love of God manifesting in
innumerable blessings, which are known and unknown to us. Human
beings live on earth in their shells, mostly unaware of all
the privileges of life, and therefore ungrateful to the Giver
of them. In order to see the grace of God one must open one's
eyes, raising one's head from the little world that one makes
around oneself, and thus see above and below, right and left,
before and behind, the grace of God reaching one from everywhere
in abundance. If one tries to thank, one might thank for thousands
of years and it would never be enough. But if one looks in one's
own little shell one does not find the grace of God; what one
finds is miseries, troubles, difficulties, injustice, hard-heartedness,
coldness of the world, all ugliness from everywhere. Because
when a person looks down he sees mud, but when he looks up there
are beautiful stars and planets. It only depends which way one
looks, upwards or downwards. What is this mortal world? What
is this physical existence? What is this life of changes? If
it were not for belief, what use is it all? Something which
is changing, something which is not reliable, something which
is liable to destruction. Therefore it is not only for the sake
of truth, but for life itself that one must find belief in oneself,
develop it, nurture it, allow it to grow every moment of one's
life, that it may culminate in faith. It is that faith which
is the mystery of life, the secret of salvation.